Card Range To Study

40 Cards in this Set

White (snow) reflects heat away. It absorbes only 1/5 to 1/10 of the sun's heat and the rest is reflected up! If it is dirty or wet or turns to ice, it absorbs 1/2 of the sun's heat.

Out of the 17 species of penguins, how many species live in Alaska?

Give 1 example

Most like cold but only 2 species live in Antartica

Emperor Penguin

ablation

ab la tion

point of a glacier where ice melts and drains off

bergy bits

pieces broken off an iceberg

growler ice

pieces of boken off glaciers-ice bergs that creak an groan like old armchairs trying to get a comfortable position

glacier till

large amounts of soil clay and rock that have been move (sometimes over great distances) by and advancing glacier or ice sheet

snow line

a line on a temperate glacier, above is snow-below is ice (from freezing and then remelting)

glacier

gla cier

a huge mass of ice, moving extremely slowly-usually down a mountainside

What is the only continent where you won't find glaciers?

Australia

How can snow "blush"?

summer red algee tints snow and ice. it gets nutrients from the snow and its red pigment(color) protects it from the ultraviole(harmful) rays of the sun. Like suntan lotion!

What's a way to test the thickness of a glacier, ice, snow?

how long it takes an echo to return from an explosion.

drumlin

drum lin

glacier rubbish that forms a upside down teaspoon shaped hill about a mile long - Bunker Hill is one!

What is the Hubbard Tidewater Glacier in Alaska famous for?

Largest tidewater glacier in N. America

What is a tidewater glacier?

a glacier who's tongue empties into the sea

What happens to a glacier when ice from the surface melts in summer?

meltwater streams can carve millwells and tunnels and make waterfalls if there is a dropdown.

Ice Ages

periods in Earths history when ice has covered a large part of it's surface

What is a galloping glacier?

Under special circumstances, and for short periods, glaciers can surge(advance) at a rate of several yards per hour. When this happens, the forward movement of the glacier can be seen and also heard as the ground underneath vibrates violently.

piedmont glacier

pied mont

French for "foot of the mountain"
If mountain glaciers don't melt when they reach the foot of the mountain, they flow out over the surrounding country

What causes a crevass?

bending of ice as it flows over bumps can make cracks(crevasses appear on the top of the glacier)

What is so dangerous about a crevasse?

During heavy snowfalls, soft snow can make a false bridge and cover them completely.
May not be stong enough to take a persons weight!

Explain how a glacier advances or retreates.

If accumulation = melting -no movement
If more melting-retreats
If more accumulation-advances

What is Carbon Dating?

A method of estimating the age of organic(live) remains by measuring the amount of radioactive carbon in the material.

ice sheet

A vast, thick layer of ice covering a large area of the Earth's surface, like the Antartic Ice Sheet or Greenland Ice Sheet

ice cap

A dome-shaped glacier usually covering a highland area. Ice caps are much smaller than ice sheets.

What sometimes makes the neat shapes at the tops of mountains?

Water trapped in cracks in the mountain rocks expand as it freezes, shattering and breaking off pieces of rock.

ice shelf

a thick floating ice sheet attached to a coast

fjord (not ford!)

deep, narrow U shaped valley formed by erosion from a glacier now filled by the sea

temperate glacier

a glacier found in the more temperate(warmer) climates of world. The whole mass of ice in a temperate glacier warms to melting point in the summer

iceberg

Big piece of floating ice thats formed when large masses of ice break away from a glacier or ice shelf

Are glaciers usually advancing or retreating these days?

retreating

calving

giving birth! ice shelfs/ glaciers breaking off pieces into water

Antartica contains 90% of the world's ice and is so thick, only 2.5% of the land is visable T F

True

explain the steps in formation of a glacier.

1. snow accumulation (must get at least
five stories high) some 50 to
100 stories!
2. compacted snow (over 1 year old
is called firn-ice crystals)
3. weight compresses air out + refreezing of melt water from warmer surface turns firn to pure ice
4. movement (with enough weight on top, underbelly of glacier is like pancake batter and creates just enough friction to serve as a lubricant.) starts sliding!

Name some life forms that live in the harsh glacier terrain and what they eat.

It's large amounts of soil, clay and rock that have been moved (sometimes a great distance!) by an advancing ice sheet or glacier.

frost shattering

water trapped in cracks in the mountian rock expands as it freezes, shattering and breaking off pieces of rock.

bedrock

the solid rock under a glacier or ice sheet

rock flour

The very finely round rock particles which flow out from beneath a glacier in the meltwater.

morraines

mor raines

as rocks are eroded by frost shattering from the mountainside, they fall onto the surface of a glacier and are carried along, or within the ice. Such rocks form dark, parallel bancs of the surface of the glacier called morraines